Re: RARA-AVIS: An ignoramus enquires....

From: John Williams ( johnwilliams@ntlworld.com)
Date: 24 Oct 2001


> On Wed, 24 Oct 2001 Scatalogic@aol.com wrote:
>
> > He has written under a number of names I believe and I think his real
> > name is Evan Hunter.
>
Then Juri wrote
> His real name was Salvatore Lombino

And, boy, is he touchy about it. Years ago I interviewed McBain (whose work I have dificulty feeling strongly about either way), and the only heat in the interview came when I asked him why he changed his name, and he went into a rant about how if you had an I-talian name publishers thought you were a dumb wop only capable of writing about the Mafia.

So I wrote up what was basically a pretty bland piece and some smart sub editor decided to liven it up by giving it the headline 'Of Wops And Cops'... That'll wind him up I thought and, sure enough, a year or so later a new 87th Precinct novel (Kiss??) comes out and in it Steve Carella (sp?) goes into a rant about anti-Italian prejudice - a heinous crime whose most notorious propnent was one John Williams of the Manchester Guardian!

Hey are they emotional or what those lovable wops?

John 'still waiting to find the horse's head in my bed' WIlliams

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